


The Truman Show (For Realsies)

by vinegar-and-glitter (vinegarandglitter)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegarandglitter/pseuds/vinegar-and-glitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Series B99 and Orphan Black. When Jake meets Emma Truman, a super-hot EMT, he thinks he might have found the perfect woman. Then things get weird. </p><p>An Orphan Black/Brooklyn Nine-Nine crossover - where Jake meets a Leda clone and gets a taste of the clonespiracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truman Show (For Realsies)

Getting shot isn’t the greatest way to end a day.

 

Honestly, it hadn’t started out like the kind of day where getting shot was a possibility. He’d spent most of the morning finishing up paperwork, listening to Boyle talk about gourmet pig intestine and trying to get as many Cheerios into Santiago’s coffee cup as humanly possible.

 

Then they’d gotten the call about the armed robbery. 2 hours later, they’d caught the guy but instead of heading back to the precinct to take all the credit for a brilliant arrest, Jake’s in the back of an ambulance with a gunshot wound in his arm.

 

Sure, he is in crazy amounts of pain and kinda worried about the amount of blood all over the place, but the main thing Jake was taking from this situation was that the EMT was really, really hot.

 

“You’re doing great, Detective,” she says with a comforting smile. “Okay, I’m just gonna put in an IV and get you some pain relief.”

 

“You have really cute teeth.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “You’re not supposed to do the awkward flirting thing until I’ve got you doped up.”

 

“Ah, so you’re an awkward flirting expert, then? Me too! What a coincidence.” Jake tries to flash her a patented Peralta charming smile. “I’m Detective Jake Peralta. Just busted an armed robbery. Injured on the line of duty. New York’s finest. Keeping America safe. All in a day’s work.”

 

“And that’s in,” she announces. “You should start feeling some pain relief any minute now.”

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Emma Truman, EMT.” She looks at him with a smile and leans in as if passing on a huge secret. “My choice of career was a no brainer. My middle name is Marion.”

 

“Like from Robin Hood!” He’s starting to feel blissfully numb and things don’t seem so bad all of a sudden. “Is it just me, or were those cartoon foxes, like, unfairly hot?”

 

“That movie sexually confused an entire generation,” Emma agrees. “You doing okay there?”

 

“Got the best and foxiest EMT in New York here at my side,” says Jake. “Can’t lose.”

 

He passes out on the way to the hospital.

 

***  
  
A week later and he’s back at the precinct. His arm’s a little stiff, sure, but there’s no lasting damage - it was a clean shot. He’d had a week off to recover and spent most of it watching movies and eating anything he could get delivered in the area. Santiago came around every couple of days to make sure he was doing okay, occasionally bringing the Chinese he liked that wasn’t quite close enough to get delivered.

 

His first day back and there’s a bit of a fuss - Terry brings in a cake, which Scully and Hitchcock eat most of. Charles has made some kind of ridiculous banner that falls down almost instantly and Santiago has taken the opportunity to put everything that had migrated onto her desk back on his. It was good to be back.

 

Around 3pm, there’s a visitor. He looks up to see foxy EMT Emma Marion Truman in the flesh. She looks different in regular clothes - her dark hair loose and curly around her chin rather than up off her face. She’s wearing a sweater that looks really soft and jeans that are really working for her. Her face lights up when she sees him and he gets a glimpse of those sexy teeth.

 

He’d never thought of teeth as particularly sexy before.

 

“Detective Peralta, it’s good to see you on your feet,” she says with a smile.

 

Jake grins. “Doctor Truman, what a pleasant surprise.”

 

“Not a doctor, Jake. Emma is fine.”

 

“So, what brings you to the Nine-Nine? Everything okay?” He gasps. “Did someone steal all your Robin Hood memorabilia?”

 

Emma doesn’t even falter. “Actually Detective, I just wanted to see how you were doing and if you maybe wanted to grab dinner later tonight.”

 

Wow. “That’s awfully forward, Miss EMT,” he teases.

 

“Hey, life’s short,” she counters in an equally teasing tone. “No point not going after what I want, right?”

 

Her grin is kind of like sunshine and he can’t help but grin back. Normally he’d be totally flustered around a pretty girl openly pursuing him, but he’s got an ace in the hole this time around - she’s already seen him do something super heroic. (She’s also already seen him high on painkillers and passed out, yet here she was.)

 

Diaz clears her throat. “This is a police precinct. You’re being gross.”

 

“Dinner sounds nice,” he replies. “But since you asked me out, you’re picking where we eat. I’m still recovering from a gunshot wound - I don’t need that kind of pressure.”

 

***

 

Emma takes him to Sal’s Pizza for dinner.

 

Jake’s impressed already.

 

They spend some time getting to know each other. He tells her about the ridiculousness of the Nine-Nine and all his cool cop stories, along with some choice tales from the academy. She responds with ambulance stories of her own. Particularly memorable was the time she treated a bunch of twenty-somethings having a girl’s night in who’d mistaken their nail polish remover for vodka and done a round of shots. Jake makes a note to warn Gina about this because that is absolutely something she would do if she were drunk enough.

 

After pizza, they head to a bar and conversation gets a bit more personal. Emma’s surprisingly easy to talk to. He talks about how his dad leaving when he was a kid made him feel like he had to protect his mom and maybe that’s why he became a cop - he wanted to protect people. She tells him that her parents spent a crazy amount of money on IVF to have her and that they have a tendency to be a bit controlling, which is why she moved to New York. Apparently her mother tells people she’s a doctor because it ‘sounds better’ and they’re constantly asking when she’s going back to med school. (The answer to that question is never. Emma loves being an EMT.)

 

Somewhere along the line, they find out they both did 3 years of tap dancing.

 

Later that night they find out that they’re both still very, very flexible.

 

***

 

The next morning his arm is pretty sore (gunshot wounds do take awhile to heal, after all) but it’s totally worth it. He swans in 20 minutes late and Santiago gives him her patented ‘frustrated but not even slightly surprised’ glare.

 

“Who has 2 thumbs and had hot sex with the foxy EMT last night?” he announces. “This guy!”

 

Santiago shakes her head. “When I met Emma on a crime scene last month she seemed so intelligent.”

 

Jake gasps. “You mean you met foxy EMT last month and you didn’t immediately think ‘this woman would be charmed and turned on beyond belief by my incredibly attractive work colleague Jake Peralta’?”

 

“That’s not something I ever think.”

 

“I’ve met Truman before,” Rosa announces. “Remember the time I got shot in the leg on that drug bust a few months back? She patched me up. She’s good. She told me to swear as much as I wanted and didn’t try to make any dumb small talk. I like her.”

 

Jake shakes his head. “How has it taken me so long to meet foxy EMT?”

 

“She has a name,” says Santiago disapprovingly. “You could use it.”

 

“Actually, I am - her full name is Emma Marion Truman, which means her initials and her job are the same.” Jake pauses for a minute. “Maybe I should change my name so my initials are NYPD.”

 

Santiago rolls her eyes. Jake pointedly ignores her.

 

“Ooh! How about ‘Nathan Yacob Peralta Dicaprio?” Boyle suggests.

 

“Keeping the ‘Yacob Peralta’ in there. Nice. The rest could do with some work, though.” Jake ponders for a moment. “Okay, I’ve got it. ‘Napolean Yacob Peralta Dynamite’.”

 

Santiago snorts. “How about ‘Nimrod Yacob Peralta Dickhead’?”

 

Jake gasps. “Detective Santiago! Language! This is a _police precinct_ and we have a _sacred duty to the community_.” He laughs. “I can’t believe Amy Santiago said the word ‘dick’.”

 

***

  
A month passes and Jake’s really happy with how things are going. Not only do he and Emma have undeniable sexual chemistry, their lives surprisingly sync up quite well. He finds himself spending more and more time staying over at her apartment and the relationship falls into an easy rhythm.

 

Emma gets along well with his colleagues, and Jake gets along well with hers. More and more often, the EMT team and the Nine-Nine hit the bar together. There’s always been a good rapport between the police and health professionals, after all. There’s a brief, passionate affair between Gina and a fresh-faced young paramedic named Michael they all watch with amusement. Things are going pretty well.

 

So when things start to get weird, Jake’s all the more surprised.

 

One morning he wakes up in Emma’s apartment to find he has slept through his alarm. And not just a little bit - it’s 3pm. His head is fuzzy, his mouth feels dry and given his experience as a detective, he knows without a shadow of a doubt what’s happened.

 

He’s been chloroformed.

 

There are 17 missed calls on his cell - 3 from Santiago, 3 from the Sarge and 11 from Boyle. He calls Santiago first.

 

“Peralta, thank god. Are you okay?”

 

“Something really weird is going on, can you come meet me at Emma’s? I’ll text the address.”

 

When Santiago arrives, Jake’s so on edge he physically drags her into the apartment. “What the hell, Peralta? What’s going on?”

 

Jake points at the carpet. “There are wheel marks on the carpet. They’re faint, but they’re there. There’s no sign of forced entry, but there’s a skid mark on the linoleum. Someone’s been in here in the night. They must have chloroformed me. I only just woke up when I called you. I don’t know what’s going on but it’s super weird. What do I say to Emma?”

 

Santiago blinks and looks at him skeptically. “Do you mean to tell me that to cover the fact you slept past your alarm, you’re creating a ridiculous story about how someone broke into your girlfriend’s apartment and chloroformed you?”

 

“Look at the wheel marks, Amy! And I’ve been chloroformed before. I know what it feels like.” He looks at her pleadingly. “Trust me on this. Something’s not right.”

 

Santiago takes a moment to respond but her eyes soften. “Okay, we’re going to the hospital and getting you a blood test.”

 

“What?”

 

“There should be trace amounts of chloroform in your bloodstream if you got a strong enough dose to knock you out. It’s a good place to start. And we’ll find Emma and see if she noticed anything last night as well.”

 

***

 

Emma herself comes back with the blood test results. “Everything’s normal, Jake,” she says, concern in her eyes. “No chloroform in your system at all. If you had been chloroformed, there’d be trace amounts still around.” She puts her hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “Babe, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary last night. Are you sure you just haven’t been working too hard?”

 

Jake shakes his head. “No. No. I know what chloroform feels like and that’s what I felt.” He pulls out his phone and shows it to her. “Look, there are track marks on your carpet. I took photos, see?”

 

Emma looks at the photos. “I can’t see anything.”

 

Jake takes the phone back. “It’s right there… aww, crap, you’re right, you can’t see it in this photo. But it’ll still be there at your place. I’ll show you tonight.”

 

Santiago is still standing in the corner. She and Emma exchange a look that sets Jake’s teeth on edge. He knows that look. He’s used it before. Usually just before they call someone in for a psych evaluation.

 

Oh boy.

 

When they get home, the marks on the carpets have disappeared.

 

***

 

A few days later, the dreams begin.

 

They all start the same. He and Emma get ready for bed and lie down. All of a sudden, he can’t move - he’s completely paralyzed. He tries to scream but nothing happens. The door to Emma’s room opens and in walk about half a dozen blurred, shadowy creatures wearing surgical masks. They’re wheeling something in and it’s super creepy.

 

They reach into the bed and pick up Emma. He can feel their hands brush against his skin and it makes him want to be sick but he still can’t move. They move her to somewhere else in the room out of his line of sight.

 

He can’t move to get a better look so all he catches are glimpses. Sounds. Noises. The beeping of a monitor. Low murmuring discussion. The scratch of a pen against a clipboard. It goes on and on and on. His heart beats faster and faster and faster.

 

He’s a cop. He should be stopping this. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He can’t do anything.

 

Finally, finally Emma’s lying in bed next to him and the shadowy figures leave the room. It’s then he wakes up in a cold sweat and wakes Emma up with him. He checks her skin for marks, he checks the room for any sign of the shadowy creatures but there’s _nothing_. She’s groggy and confused and doesn’t register his panic.

 

He goes into the bathroom to calm himself down and tries to ignore the dark circles around his eyes.

 

***

 

“What are you doing in here, Peralta?”

 

Jake nearly jumps three feet in the air because dammit, he did not hear Santiago sneaking up on him. He really needs some sleep. “Wear a bell!”

 

Santiago crosses her arms and stares him down. “You have been in this records room all day. I want to know why. You hate the records room.”

 

Jake sighs. “Okay, fine. If you must know, I’m looking up cases about medical experiments.”

 

Santiago frowns. “Is this about the Daniels case?”

 

“Sure,” he lies.

 

“Liar.” Her expression grows more concerned and her voice softens. “Jake, what’s going on? You look exhausted.”

 

He sighs again. “Look, remember how I told you that someone broke into Emma’s apartment and chloroformed me?”

 

“Seeing as that was just two weeks ago, I definitely remember it.”

 

“Okay, well, I’ve been having these super creepy dreams about people breaking in and performing medical experiments on Emma in the night,” he explains, trying not to think about the fact that he knows what he’s saying is completely insane. “So I was… I don’t know, looking at cases and seeing if there’s, like, a serial medical experimenter we’ve come across.”

 

Santiago is quiet for a long moment. “You think it’s not just a dream.”

 

“I don’t know, okay?” Jake runs his fingers through his hair and starts pacing. “I just know that something weird is going on. I know. I feel it in my gut.”

 

Santiago just looks at him, as if trying to figure out whether to respond. Finally, she opens her mouth. “Okay. Do you want to know what I think?”

 

Jake shrugs. “Sure.”

 

“I think you really, really like Emma,” she says quietly. “I think that maybe someone did break into her apartment that night - someone really good who had a spare key somehow and is really good at covering their tracks. And you’re worried about her. It spooked you and it’s giving you nightmares.”

 

“Why would the nightmares be medical experiments, though?” Jake counters. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

It’s Santiago’s turn to shrug. “Because she works in the medical field? It could be your brain associating the two things.”

 

“Spoken like a true shrink,” he says with a tad more venom than he means.

 

“I did some psychology papers in college,” she points out. “The human brain is really weird.”

 

“That’s what you got out of your psychology papers, Santiago?” he teases. “The human brain is really weird?”

 

She rolls her eyes but there’s a ghost of a smile there. “Hey, I was top of the class.”

 

“Of course you were.”

 

Santiago grabs his arm. “Come on, we’re getting out of here. Got a new case. It’s time for you to do some actual police work, Peralta.”

 

***

  
Another month passes. He tries to convince himself that Santiago’s theory is probably exactly what’s happening and that he shouldn’t worry about it but the nightmares just keep coming. He never sleeps through his alarm again but on the mornings he has the nightmares, he wakes up groggy and chilled to the bone. The more he sleeps over at Emma’s place, the more the nightmares happen. The nights he sleeps alone at home, they stop. He feels like he’s going crazy.

 

He tries to tell Emma that there’s something wrong but there’s no evidence. No smoking gun he can point to and prove it’s more than just bad dreams. She’s sympathetic but assures him she’s completely fine and hasn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. The words ‘it’s all in your head’ aren’t ever said aloud. They don’t need to be.

  
Emma does everything she can to help deal with the nightmares. She does a bunch of research on sleep hygiene and bans them both from coffee after 4pm and using their laptops in bed. She even makes him warm milk before bed.

 

It’s super cute and he’d tease her mercilessly for it if he weren’t so tired.

 

It’s starting to affect his work, to the point where Santiago stages an intervention and he finds himself in the Captain’s office with the Sarge. He’s being sent to a departmentally issued psychological evaluation and to be honest, it doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.

 

After a session the psychologist prescribes him something to help him sleep that makes him even more groggy. He takes them for a week before deciding it’s just not worth it. Eventually he decides to tell Emma that for some reason, her apartment gives him nightmares, so can they maybe crash at his. She still looks concerned but agrees to give it a go.

 

The whole reason they’d been sleeping at Emma’s was because she had a way nicer apartment. Jake’s is a mess. So Emma makes him clean his apartment from top to bottom that weekend. She helps, of course, and makes it super fun - they strip to their underwear and do the Risky Business dance while they’re cleaning, listening to oldies as loud as they can, and Jake thinks things might be looking up.

 

***

 

A week after he completely stops sleeping at Emma’s, Jake gets chloroformed for realsies.

 

He’s walking toward his apartment after a rare night out without Emma (she’d picked up an emergency shift) and all of a sudden he realises he’s being followed. Right after that realisation, someone gets the jump on him, puts a cloth over his mouth. He recognises the smell instantly and his last thought before blacking out is _I knew it_.

 

He comes to and finds himself tied to a chair, sitting at a desk and face to face with a man in an expensive looking suit.

 

“Good evening, Detective Peralta.”

 

Jake reminds himself to stay calm. “Hello!” he says brightly. “I have no idea who you are and what you want with me, so if you could fill me in on what’s going on here, that’d be great.”

 

“I’m here to offer you a job, Detective.”

 

Okay, not what he expected. “Since you’ve now called me Detective twice, you’re probably aware that I actually have a job, right? Detective with the NYPD, maybe you’ve heard of them? Also, my mom always said ‘never take a job offer that comes with chloroform but not a fruit basket’.”

 

The man’s expression doesn’t change.

 

“Okay, fine, my mom didn’t say that but it’s a great line.”

 

The man crosses his arms. “You’re a fine detective, Peralta, which is why we’ve decided that your co-operation with our research would be mutually beneficial.”

 

The pieces slot into place. “Does that research have anything to do with breaking into my girlfriend’s apartment and doing weird medical stuff to her while I’m incapacitated?”

 

The man actually smiles. “You’re very observant. Most people would dismiss it as bad dreams but you’ve got a keen eye. You found evidence of us the first time we encountered you. We’ve had to, as they say, up our game.”

 

Jake tugs against his restraints. “What the hell are you doing to her?

 

“Nothing invasive, I assure you,” says the man calmly. “We’re simply monitoring her health. Extensively. Miss Truman is part of a long term study for our institute. She’s been monitored her entire life - from birth to present day.”

 

He reads between the lines. “And she doesn’t know she’s being monitored. So it’s like The Truman Show. No, wait - it IS The Truman Show. Because her last name is Truman. Is her whole life on some kind of weird cable channel I don’t have because I can’t afford it?” His eyes widen. “Did you record us having sex? Because if so, I reserve the right to name my own sex tape. It better not already have a name.”

 

The man doesn’t react to Jake’s ramblings. “It’s crucial to our study that Emma remain unaware she’s being monitored. If she finds out, the entire study will be for nothing. Millions of dollars and years of time wasted.”

 

“I’m pretty sure performing medical experiments on someone without their consent is all kinds of illegal,” says Jake. “And I’m pretty sure the job you’re about to offer me means that I’ll have to pretend to be okay with that, so I’m going to save us all some time and just say no.”

 

“Let me put the offer on the table first.”

 

“Nope. Definitely not interested.”

 

The man slides a piece of paper in front of Jake.

 

“Okay, so you are _literally_ putting an offer on the table.”

 

“The terms are here. I’ll uncuff you in a moment to let you have a look but first, let me tell you what it entails,” the man says calmly. “You won’t need to leave the NYPD - in fact, we’d require you to stay on. Your main duties include allowing us access for the physical health tests we require on a regular basis and reporting back 3 times a week on your subject’s activities. You’ll receive a weekly stipend to cover your costs and compensate you for your time. ”

 

“Is this how you hire people?” he asks. “Like, is kidnapping your general hiring process? Because I want to talk to HR.” Jake has a look at the piece of paper in front of him and his eyes widen. “Wait, should there be that many zeroes?”

 

“We’re aware of your financial situation. There’s very little you’d need to do - just let us collect our data and keep us informed of her movements. It’s easy money. We’ll track her movements and get our data either way - you might as well get paid for it.”

 

After months of sleeping badly, doubting his sanity and dealing with the unsettling feeling that something just isn’t right, Jake snaps. “I’m not spying on Emma for you. I’m not letting you creeps anywhere near her ever again. If your studies are for her own good then she should know about them and she should have a choice. What the hell kind of ‘research’ are you doing that means she’s not allowed to know? What could you possibly be doing that makes this okay?”

 

The man smiles and this time it’s downright chilling. “We’re changing the future of humanity.”

 

“Yeah, well, you’re doing it without my girlfriend.”

 

The smile doesn’t leave the man’s face. “This isn’t a negotiation, Detective. You’re free to decline our offer but that doesn’t mean we’ll allow you to disrupt our experiment.”

 

It suddenly occurs to Jake that he’s in an unidentified room, tied to a chair, weaponless and not on a case, so there’s absolutely zero chance someone’s coming in for backup. These guys had been gaslighting him for months, they clearly have some kind of connections. He might not actually be walking out of here alive.

 

“I’d rather not kill you,” says the man, sounding almost bored. “Miss Truman might react badly to a dead boyfriend. We’d prefer to spare her that kind of trauma. But her boyfriend breaking up with her… that’s less traumatizing. Relationships do run their course, after all.”

 

“Okay, so this is ‘break up with Emma and don’t tell her about the creepy experiments or I’ll kill you’ time?”

 

The man slides three photos across to Jake and his heart leaps into his throat. There in front of him are three familiar faces, all neatly labelled.

 

_Karen Peralta._

 

_Charles Boyle._

 

_Amy Santiago._

 

“I don’t need to kill _you_ , Detective Peralta.”

 

It feels like the air in the room is disappearing entirely and dammit, Jake has to get a hold of himself because out of the corner of his eye he can see the smug look on the bastard’s face. The man is waiting for an answer and Jake’s stomach feels like lead because he knows how this is going to play out.

 

He knows when he’s been beaten.

 

***

 

Emma doesn’t take being dumped particularly well.

 

Especially when Jake really, really doesn’t want to be doing it. Emma is funny, sweet, sexy, crazy good in bed and incredibly fun to be around. He doesn’t know if he’s madly in love with her but what he feels is definitely something - something that maybe could have been love if it had been given the time to grow.

 

So when he’s busy spouting all sorts of “it’s not you, it’s me” bullshit and she’s poking holes in his admittedly terrible reasons for ending the relationship, he tries really, really hard to picture those three photos in his mind.

 

_Karen Peralta._

 

_Charles Boyle._

 

_Amy Santiago._

 

Maybe he might have loved Emma one day. He’s still terrified for her. There’s a part of him that’s dying to tell her everything and convince her they have to go on the run. Maybe they could move to Canada. He likes maple syrup.

 

But that won’t protect his mom. Or Charles. Or Amy.

 

And he still has no proof.

 

“You know, one of the main things I liked about you was that you were brave,” Emma says bitterly as she starts throwing the last of her stuff he hadn’t managed to pack into the box he’d prepared. “And you may be brave when it comes to armed robberies but when it really matters, you’re a coward, Jake.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to put all the things he can’t say into those two words that really don’t feel like they mean anything at all right now. “I wish things could be different.”

 

Her look is stone cold. “Yeah, well, wish away.”

 

***

 

The next day at work, he’s uncharacteristically quiet and Santiago notices. So does Boyle. After half an hour of nagging, he finally snaps and admits that he and Emma broke up.

 

Hitchcock groans. “Does this mean no more hanging out with the EMT crew? But Jerry always lets me eat his pretzels!”

 

“You’re gonna get through this, you brave little soldier,” says Boyle, pulling him in for a hug that’s weird and uncomfortable and goes on far too long.

 

“I’m sorry, Jake,” says Santiago, and it hits him pretty bad because it’s not all that often that Amy Santiago calls him anything but Peralta. (It’s not all that often that he calls her anything but Santiago, either.) His mind flashes back to the picture of her on that table in that unidentified room. He briefly wonders why she’d be the third person on that list - the list they used to break him - but brushes it off. She’s his work partner. Of course people would be able to link them together.

 

Jake lets Rosa take him out for a drink once they’re off the clock. One drink turns into several drinks and before he knows it, he wakes up on Rosa’s couch the next morning with one of the worst hangovers he’s ever had. Rosa’s already up and has coffee ready.

 

“Oh god, I feel like someone drove a steamroller through my head,” he groans. “I don’t even remember leaving the bar.”

 

Rosa hands him a cup of coffee. “Do you remember telling me you had to break up with Emma because a creepy organisation were performing medical experiments on her?”

 

Uh-oh. “What?”

 

“Also that if you didn’t break up with her, they’d kill Boyle and Santiago and your mom.”

 

He feigns ignorance. “I said that?”

 

“Don’t bullshit me, man.” She actually looks concerned. “I know you had this whole thing where you thought someone was breaking into her apartment. Amy told me you were looking for medical experiments in the old case files. Did something happen?”

 

“It just didn’t work out between us,” said Jake flatly. “Weird dreams and reality got all mixed up when I was drunk. I’m fine. Really.”

 

Rosa drops it and offers him a ride to work on her motorcycle.

 

Taking her up on it is the worst decision hungover Jake has ever made.

 

***

 

It takes awhile to shake the whole thing off but getting stuck into work seems to be the answer. He makes up for it by getting super competitive with Santiago - and there begins The Bet that (eventually) changes everything. Time passes, and he almost forgets about Emma and the mysterious medical experiments.

 

Sometimes he even convinces himself that he imagined the whole thing.

 

So it’s all the more surprising that when nearly four years later, Holt calls Jake and Amy (now his partner in more than just police work) into his office for a case.

 

“I’ve called you in here because this case is a little… unusual,” says Holt. He hands them both a file and Jake opens it to find himself once again face to face with Emma Truman.

 

Emma Truman with a bullet between her eyes.

 

“Oh my god, Emma,” says Amy, her voice thick.

 

Holt frowns. “You know this woman?”

 

Jake can’t take his eyes off the file. “Her name is Emma Marion Truman. We used to date.”

 

Holt frowns even more, if that’s even possible. “We ran fingerprints and found three possible matches in the area for a woman matching this description - Tamara Cook, Jamie Stevens and Lily McIntosh. Emma Truman’s not on the list.”

 

“This is definitely Emma,” Jake says determinedly. “I’d know that face anywhere.”

 

“Turn the page,” Holt orders.

 

He does. And finds himself once again looking at a familiar face - three versions of it. There are differences, sure. The first one is wearing huge amounts of green eyeshadow and has short, spiky black hair. The second one has a chin length dark brown bob. The third one has bright red curls and thick cat eye glasses. But they’re all the same face.

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“We seem to have a mystery on our hands,” says the captain.

 

Amy looks over at Jake. Their eyes lock for a minute and he can’t help think about the photo of her on that table so many years ago. Even back then, he knew he’d do anything to protect this woman. But maybe it was time to finally get to the bottom of this.

 

Jake steels himself. “You might want to sit down for this next bit, guys. I’ve got a super weird story to tell you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know if I'm going to write a sequel to this but if anyone wanted to continue it, you'd have my blessing. I just couldn't shake the idea of a pre-series story where Jake met a Leda clone and was too observant a detective to not notice just how weird and creepy the monitoring system is.


End file.
